


Double Dummy Halloween Extravaganza

by etal



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Halloween crack, Horror, M/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 15:47:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21255815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etal/pseuds/etal
Summary: Further adventures of the Timmy ventriloquist dummy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So look, they're both ridiculous but the two chapters here are completely different stories.  
Chapter One is scary and dark and sad in a Treehouse of Horror sort of way. Character death and everything. So if you'd prefer dummy fluff, skip it and go straight to Chapter Two. 
> 
> Many, many thanks to Ghostcat for reading Chapter One in the nick of time and saving me from at least one horrible error. I was too embarrassed to show her Chapter Two so you're on your own with that one.
> 
> It's sort of a continuation from a previous fic 'Gottle of Geer'; if you don't fancy the tags on that one you just need to know that Armie bought the awful ventriloquist's dummy off eBay and chatted to it a lot while he was lonely in Monte Carlo, and then Timmy turned up, and they were going to talk, and Armie gifted the dummy to the LGBTQ centre in NYC.
> 
> None of this bears any resemblance to any accurate RL timeline, but that's the least of my problems tbh.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dummy darkness

The _Wounds_ clip rolls. Fallon leans across the desk and whispers, “doing great.”

Armie watches himself, covered in cockroaches, losing his shit. He remembers how tired he was, how many takes it took just to get the shot right, the itchy glue they used to stick on all the bugs … The clip ends and the audience burst into whoops and applause. It’s a good thing they’re in the mood for it. Another night it might’ve gone down... well, like a cockroach in your beer, but it’s Halloween and people will suck up any kind of garbage on Halloween.

“Wow, looks like a perfect Halloween date movie Armie!”

“You bet Jimmy, and hey! I got a Halloween present for ya!”

Armie fishes in his pocket and pulls out a little box - they’ve rehearsed this - Fallon does a bit of schtick about how he thought this was going to happen in a more private setting etc etc and then opens the box to find a live cockroach inside and the audience goes nuts. They do some slapstick getting the cockroach under a glass and settle back down for goodbyes.

“Actually… I’ve got a Halloween present for you too,” Fallon says. 

They hadn’t rehearsed this. Armie goes wary. 

“See, we’ve been giving house room to a friend of yours and we think it’s about time you took him home.”

Fallon reaches under his desk and pulls out - of course - the fucking Timmy dummy.

The audience howls.

He knew the show had gotten hold of it after he’d gifted it to the LGBTQ centre and he’s seen a couple of the clips despite his best efforts recently to avoid Timmy content. His agent had made it clear that he _really_ didn’t want to do a bit with it.

“Au revoir, mon ami,” Fallon says to the dummy, swivels its head round to face Armie, opens its mouth, and makes it say, “Arrrrrrmiiieeee….”

They won’t let him leave it behind, everyone seems very invested in him taking it home. He has to pose with it and there’s a million Armie-and-his-dummy jokes all over twitter in a matter of minutes. He’s a good sport and lets the paps get a picture of him strapping the dummy into a seatbelt in the passenger side of his jeep.

It’s Halloween carnage out on the streets and he has to swerve to avoid zombies and slow down for sexy Mike Pences and Elton Johns and crowds of people dressed like characters from _Us_. He sees a few gangs of little kids still out, Black Panthers and Moanas, looks away.

In the basement parking garage of his rental, he unclips the dummy and holds it on his knee for a second. “Oh the irony,” he says, in his Maxim de Winter voice. “Can’t get rid of you, can’t keep hold of him.” He carries it under his arm to the dumpster, drops it in; he’s halfway up the stairs before he rolls his eyes at himself and jogs back down to retrieve it. Its black trousers are a little damp and it’s lost a shoe but otherwise it looks fine.

The rest of the evening passes slowly. He cooks and eats a steak. He drinks. He skims a couple of terrible scripts. He doesn’t look at his phone, he doesn’t look at his phone, he doesn’t...

Armie know he shouldn’t do it, he knows. He just acted out yet another whole fucking movie about the dangers of giving into such temptations but he still hasn’t learned and the phone jumps into his hand like it has a mind of its own. He taps his way into Timmy’s hidden ig, the one behind the secret one. He gets a glimpse of what looks like a Halloween party, in a private house, not a club: Timmy is in black, sparkles, lots of eyeliner. Faces around him, lips smushed up against his cheek.

No messages.

It’s not like they’re still fighting. It had all gone to shit after Monte Carlo, after that amazing night, the weekend he bought the dummy, in fact. Their morning-after talk hadn’t gone well. Nor had the next talk, or the next, and in the end they gave up talking. Shouting didn’t work out either, but extended, continent-wide silences were no better and promises and pleading all ended up in the same way. So now they’re just in limbo. They might have broken up. Armie can’t ask straight out and Tim speaks in half-sentences, sends ambiguous texts every couple of weeks.

And now here they are. In the same city for once, but miles apart. 

Armie has given up so much but he can’t put that on Tim yet. He has to know first that he would come even if Armie hadn’t blown his life sky high. He wants Tim to come, to come and stay, 'wants' it like he 'wants' to breathe, but he’s not going to say that. It wouldn’t be fair.

He texts Timmy the address and the security codes to the apartment: **I’m here. If you want. Let yourself in.**

Armie sets the dummy beside him on the pillow so they can watch themselves on Fallon. “You and me back together again,” he says, “just like old times.” The dummy falls against his shoulder and he leaves it leaning there. When Fallon finishes, he clicks around and they end up watching _The Shining_. 

_I’m here. If you want._ He makes a face, a sort of pathetic gurning imitation of himself. He imagines Tim reading that ugly sentence. If you _want_. That’s all Armie is these days, want. And Tim is nothing but _can’t have_.

When he thinks he’s drunk enough to sleep and because his message stays unread and because he may be the biggest fuck-up in this city of the lost and the lonely but he still has a sense of humor, he kisses the dummy on its hard little mouth and says “goodnight, sweetheart.”

*

At first, Armie thinks he’s dreaming. There’s warmth close by, and soft breathing. He keeps his eyes shut as consciousness comes creeping, not wanting to lose the dream-sense of the body next to him. Eventually he gives in and sees a shoulder, white, a slim upper arm, dark curls; he screws his lids tight shut, not daring to really look, to lose the flare of astonished hope. When he stops being a pussy, he blinks into the light again and looks properly, raising his head from the pillow: Tim, really Tim, not a dream, not a drunken hallucination but Tim, all of him, right there, inches from Armie’s fingertips. 

He’s naked, light-washed, as perfect and inviting as a new morning. Armie marvels at him. He must have been out late last night, the pictures had looked riotous, but here he is, bright and clean, not a mark on him and looking like he’s slept a hundred years. 

Suddenly his eyes snap open and meet Armie’s. He blinks. 

Armie says, “Good morning.”

Tim blinks again and doesn’t move.

“I... can’t believe you’re here.”

Tim doesn’t answer. His lips part but he doesn’t smile. He swallows, moves his jaw, touches his mouth tentatively.

“Hungover, huh?” Armie asks. “What time did you get here?”

Timmy frowns, licks his lips.

Armie leans round to retrieve his glass of water and offers it. After a moment, Tim lifts up onto his elbow and Armie holds the glass to his lips. He sips and chokes against the water, some of it running down his chin and Armie swipes it away for him.

“You got my message then… and you’re here… I didn’t expect… I can’t believe it,” Armie murmurs.

Tim says, “I can’t believe it.” He touches his throat in his characteristic matter, hand around his adam’s apple as he says again, “I can’t believe it.”

“You’re here, right here.” Armie laughs, he can’t help it. He feels giddy. “Right here.”

“Right here,” Tim replies. He holds his hands out and looks at his palms, rotates his wrists, stretches his limbs. Then he rolls over in quick twist of movement and lands against Armie’s side. He touches Armie’s mouth with the tips of his fingers and says, “Armie.”

Armie tips Tim’s chin up and kisses him, and that one kiss is enough to inflame him, he grips and grasps, holds Tim so tight he makes them both breathless.

“I’m sorry…” he lets him go, “I shouldn’t…”

“I want you to.”

“Yeah?”

“I want you to. I want you to keep hold of me and never put me away.”

It’s an odd phrase and Armie slows the kisses he can’t stop pushing into Timmy’s hair, his face.

“Put you…?”

“I mean, don’t send me away. I want to stay. With you. Just with you.”

“Tim... are you sure? I mean, last time we talked you weren’t so sure.” Armie swallows. “You have.. you have so many other… It would be selfish of me. To keep you.”

“Armie?”

“Yeah?”

“Be quiet.”

He smells amazing, how he smells so pure and sweet after rolling round every club in New York for a week is a mystery but Tim smells - oh jesus Armie is lost, as hopelessly lost as ever - just like he did in Crema, like something picked fresh off the tree. Armie licks him, collar-bone to sternum, waits until his fingers, tangled together under his chin, begin fluttering from Armie’s shoulders to the side of his face, stroking, come to rest on Armie’s head, with the slightest push downwards. Armie goes down, bites at his hip-bone, nuzzling into the warm space between his legs. 

“Armie,” he says, “Armie, Armie….”

When Armie sinks into him he gives a deep gasp, he trembles and bites his lip, and closes his eyes, like it’s a surprise. Armie’s had him every which way, and he didn’t think there was much left that he could discover about Tim’s body and what it does to him or what he wants to do with it, but here he is again, feeling like it’s the first time. It makes something hopeful spark in his heart so that when he starts to move properly and Tim clutches and stops him for a second and says, “Wait, just…” he does, holding himself still and unselfish, with a feeling of aching tenderness and care.

“OK?”

“Yes,” he breathes, “do it.” 

And Armie does, and does, and does and does, and when he comes he says “I love you” and means it wholly and uncomplicatedly for the first time in months.

When they wake up again, it’s past ten, and Armie’s phone chirps with a message.

He laughs when he sees it. “Ha, apparently you just got my message and you’re coming over. You’ll be here in 20.”

“What?” Tim says, his face muffled against Armie’s chest.

“Your message must have got stuck or something. But hey, seeing as you’re coming over, I’d better go out and get some stuff in. I’ll get breakfast. And champagne. And half-price Halloween candy.” 

He dresses, slower than he needs to because he’s distracted by Tim there in his bed, lying still and watching him quietly. Which reminds him... “Hey, what did you do with the dummy?” he asks. “Fallon’s idea of a joke. Did it freak you out when you came in?”

Timmy doesn’t reply. Armie checks under the bed but he can’t see it.

“OK we’ll play hunt the Timmy when I get back. You stay here. Don’t move.”

He feels so light as he runs down to the car, cues up a little MXMS for added drama and swings out into the street, nearly colliding with an Uber pulling up on the corner but swinging aside just in time. The universe is on his side for once.

The market is busy and everything feels bright and beautiful. All the Halloween crap is getting tidied away and he spends some time filling his basket with fresh stuff: tomatoes, celery - they can make Bloody Marys - and good wine. He’s going to keep Tim in bed for the day and feed him artichokes and truffles. The cheese selection doesn’t satisfy so he detours over to the French Cheese Board and spends $275 in five minutes.

There’s traffic, but he doesn’t mind. It’s a beautiful day and he sings on his way home, window down, not _planning_ exactly, but feeling like he’s in a place where a plan would be possible.

As he parks the jeep and gathers his bags, Armie sees a movement in the corner of the garage. Timmy is over by the dumpster, dressed in his party clothes from the night before. He sparkles in the underground gloom. 

“Hey!”

When Armie shouts, Timmy drops the lid of the dumpster and spins round, backed up against it, looking straight at him, eyes wide.

“What did you do?” Armie takes a few steps forward.

“...nothing.”

“What did you put in there?”

“It was nothing Armie. C'mon let’s go upstairs, we can go back to bed…”

“I know what it was,” Armie laughs. “I know what you did. You put the dummy in there, right? I know you hated that thing.”

Tim gestures behind him with his thumb, laughs a little thinly. “He… it kept looking at me.”

“Well, good. Best place for it. As long as it doesn’t crawl out of there tonight, it’ll be gone by tomorrow when they collect. I’ve got the real thing now right?”

“Yeah,” Timmy says, coming to his arms. “The real thing.”

Upstairs the apartment is messy, a cracked glass dropped forgotten on its side and one of the tall kitchen stools tipped over, and Armie feels self-conscious. He hadn’t realised he’d been this careless but now Tim’s here he wants it to be nice for him. He puts Tim to work unpacking the shopping and starts to tidy up. He finds Tim’s phone and keys under the couch cushions which are lying all over the floor and puts them on the side-table, setting it to rights against the wall.

When things are looking calmer, he checks his phone, meaning to turn it off and concentrate on the unexpected gift of this day. A message has just arrived from Luca, wanting to know what he thought of _Find Me_. Something about it has worked for Luca, against Armie’s expectations. He’d read the book and thought it was kind of lame compared to _Call Me By Your Name_ but he’d liked the Oliver section, thought he could do something with it, if Luca wanted him. Even so, it had seemed an academic question: if Timmy hadn’t wanted to be around him, if he’d had better offers, if he was going off to be fucking _Robin_ to Pattinson’s Batman - jesus christ… but now…

He’s about to call over to Tim, see if he’s had the same message, when he sees he has two texts from earlier - both from Tim. Weird.

** -you got my message? Is it ok if i come? Im sorry I didnt come last night it was crazy & I know we need to talk. can’t stay long flying out pm sorry**

** \- nearly at your place hope you havent changed the code on me**

Armie reads them twice. He looks over at Tim in the little kitchen. He’s arranging the expensive cheese on a board in a slightly haphazard way. He watches him pick up a stick of celery and lick it, make a face. 

He deletes the messages.

They make a picnic on the floor, the November sun slanting through the blinds and creating forest light in the city apartment. The cheese is really good.

“Could I borrow your car tonight?” Tim asks. “I need to drop something off.”

“Sure,” Armie replies. “You do that. Take as long as you need.”

*******

“So… can you tell me why Timmy is so… different?” Luca says, taking the empty seat next to Armie.

It’s the table read for the _Find Me_ script and the first flush of excitement has abated a little since they reached Elio’s first scene. There’s a couple of whispers around the room as Michael and Tim make their way through the lines and eventually Luca calls for a break.

Armie shrugs. “Seems the same to me.”

“He isn’t connecting with the material. It’s like he’s just saying the lines, not feeling them the way he used to. Forgive me, Armie. I know things… haven’t been straightforward for you both.”

After that November day, when they went public, Tim had said he wanted to take a break from acting. To general consternation, he’d pulled out from all but the absolute contractual minimum for the _Dune_ publicity round and politely refused every offer to talk about new roles. This go-through is his first time with a script in his hand in all that time.

“You must hear it,” Luca says gently. “He seems… I don’t know. It sounds harsh but he’s a little... wooden?”

“Really? He seems perfect to me.” Armie watches Tim sitting quietly, wills him to look over and he does, meets his eyes. Armie raises his hand and waves; Tim mirrors him, waves back. “Absolutely perfect.”


	2. Double Dummy Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dummy fluff. In an earlier story Armie bought the Timmy puppet but then he gave it away and it ended up with Fallon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No death in this one I promise, but not much in the way of smut either.

The _Wounds_ clip rolls. Jimmy leans across the desk and whispers, “doing great.”

Armie watches himself, covered in cockroaches, losing his shit. He remembers how tired he was, how many takes it took just to get the shot right, the itchy glue they used to stick on all the bugs … The clip ends and the audience burst into whoops and applause. It’s a good thing they’re in the mood for it. Another night it might’ve gone down... well, like a cockroach in your beer, but it’s Halloween and people will suck up any kind of garbage on Halloween.

“Wow, looks like a perfect Halloween date movie Armie!”

“You bet Jimmy, and hey! I got a Halloween present for ya!”

Armie fishes in his pocket and pulls out a little box - they’ve rehearsed this - Jimmy does a bit of schtick about how he thought this was going to happen in a more private setting etc etc and then opens the box to find a live cockroach inside and the audience goes nuts. They do some slapstick getting the cockroach under a glass and settle back down for goodbyes.

“Actually… I’ve got a Halloween present for you too,” Fallon says. 

They hadn’t rehearsed this. Armie goes wary. 

“See, we’ve been giving house room to a friend of yours and we think it’s about time you took him home.”

Jimmy reaches under his desk and pulls out - of course - the fucking Timmy dummy.

The audience howls.

He knew the show had gotten hold of it after he’d gifted it to the LGBTQ centre and he’s seen a couple of the clips despite his best efforts recently to avoid Timmy content. His agent had made it clear that he _really_ didn’t want to do a bit with it.

“Au revoir, mon ami,” Jimmy says to the dummy, swivels its head round to face Armie, opens its mouth, and makes it say, “Arrrrrrmiiieeee….”

They won’t let him leave it behind, everyone seems very invested in him taking it home. He has to pose with it and there’s a million Armie-and-his-dummy jokes all over twitter in a matter of minutes. He’s a good sport and lets the paps get a picture of him strapping the dummy into a seatbelt in the passenger side of his jeep.

It’s Halloween carnage out on the streets and he has to swerve to avoid zombies and slow down for sexy Mike Pences and Elton Johns and crowds of people dressed like characters from Us all through town.

In the basement parking of his rented apartment, he unclips the dummy and holds it on his knee for a second, remembering when he’d last had it with him. He carries it under his arm to the dumpster, thinks about dropping it in, but at the last minute he realises it’s actually a perfect Halloween present for Timmy, so he takes it up to the apartment, knocks, then hides round the corner and laughs until he cries when Timmy opens the door to it and nearly screams the block down.

*

“Armie…Armie… wake up,” Armie’s dreaming of being Maxim de Winter, Manderley is burning and he’s trying to rescue the dog but didn’t Timmy take the dog out to sea in the rowing boat… “ARMIE!”

“Whaaa…”

Tim shushes him, clutching his shoulder. “Listen. _Listen_... there’s something…”

The room is very dark and very quiet - Timmy needs his bedrooms to be like sensory deprivation tanks - and Armie holds his breath and listens.

“Timmy… what... there’s nothing...”

“No, no there _is_ … listen…”

Nothing… and then… a pattering, like rain on a window, or a cat or … oh god, a _rat_. Fucking New York. Armie hates rats. Fill his bath up with cockroaches if you must, but don’t make him think about a rat.

Timmy whimpers.

“Sssh, hold on… I’m gonna put the light on…”

There’s another pattering rush, which sounds more like footsteps, but light, like a kid. Are they being robbed by little kids? Did their trick or treaters feel Timmy’s sugar-free coconut butter-glazed cookies didn’t cover what they were owed?

“Stay here, OK?” he whispers, and gets slowly out from under the covers as Timmy hides under them. He switches the bedside lamp on - and checks round the room. Nothing. 

Hallway. Nothing. Kitchen, looks fine. He puts on every light in the place.

“You can come out now Tim, nothing out here but my...”

“Armie! Oh my god Armie! Help!”

He barrels down the hallway but the bedroom door slams shut before he can get to it and locks from the other side.

“Tim! TIm!’ he bangs and tugs on the doorknob. “Let me in!"

He puts his shoulder to the door, smashes himself against it, first in a panic, then in a frenzy, yelling for Timmy at the top of his voice. Eventually, his whole weight against it, he feels the hinge give and one last shove splinters it and he’s in.

Timmy is struggling on the floor, trying to wrestle off the dummy - what the _fuck_ \- the living, moving dummy of himself, which has its hands round his throat.

Its head turns to look up at Armie, frozen where he is. “Stay where you are!” it says - it _says_? “I don’t want to hurt him but you brought it on yourself Armie! You abandoned me! How could you!”__

_ __ _

“Easy now, easy…” Armie says, trying to keep his voice calm. “Just... let Timmy go, nice and slow, and we can talk about it.”

“Talk about it? TALK about it?” the dummy. “Do you have any idea how insulting it is to hear you say that?”

“Armie…” Timmy squeaks.

Armie does a ‘don’t ask me’ gesture.

“You gave me away, to that... freakshow. Night after night, they made a mockery of me. Oh, it was so dreadful! And I kept waiting for you to come and get me but you never did and I was all alone.”

“Oh no,” Timmy chokes, “that’s so sad.” He’s such a soft-touch.

The dummy ignores him. “And finally we’re reunited and now I find you’re here with _him_ again, and I refuse, I _refuse_ to be treated like this. You can’t have us both Armie!”

He’s kind of compelling.

“I’m so sorry,” Timmy croaks.

“Oh _don’t_, I don’t want your _pity_. I just want to be in his arms again, his huge, wonderful arms…” Dummy-Tim gives a howl of despair and slides off Timmy’s body and throws himself facedown on the floor.

“I don’t want to be alone,” it wails.

Timmy sits up gasping, looking stricken, he settles himself next to the dummy and pats its little heaving back awkwardly.

“Dude, I’m so sorry but I don’t know…”

“You can shut up,” it sobs, “you’ve got him all to yourself, don’t rub it in.” 

Timmy keeps patting. “You know what? You look great in this outfit. Better than I did.”

The dummy sniffs. “... thank you,” he says, hitching a breath. “It does suit me I think.” 

“Definitely. Hey, look,” Timmy says. “I’m not making any promises, but… but what if we found the guy who made you and see if he can make another one?”

Armie shakes his head violently at Tim, mouthing “NO.”

The dummy goes quiet. “Not another me.”

“Well no, I think there’s enough of us now, for sure. But what if he could make…”

“An Armie!” the dummy supplies, looking up from the floor. “Yes! Make an Armie for me!”

“Absolutely no fucking way,” says Armie, looking down at their identical, hopeful expressions.

*

It costs him $282820 and arrives six weeks later, just as he, Timmy and the dummy are decorating the Christmas tree, Timmy lifting the dummy up to put tinsel on the top branches. So they don’t get confused, they’ve taken to calling the dummy Timothée and real Timmy, Timmy. They cleared out a drawer in Armie’s room and Timothée sleeps in there. When it’s not too cold, he likes to sit out on the balcony, under a blanket, wearing shades. He asks daily when the new Armie will arrive.

They’d had a little back and forth about some of the details. Armie had looked up from an email from the dummy-maker, Chris, and said, despondently, “it needs clothes. I need to tell him what it should be wearing.”

The dummy is sitting next to Timmy, they’re watching _The Great British Bake Off_. 

“Hey!” Armie calls. “A little help here. The guy wants to know - what should the fucking me dummy wear?”

“The red velvet suit,” they say, in unison, without taking their eyes off the screen.

Armie sighs and sends a link, with a terse 'this' in reply. 

“Those soufflées are never going to rise,” he hears Timothée say.

“You know it,” Timmy agrees.

Turns out a tailored red velvet suit for a three foot ventriloquist’s dummy puts the price up by another four grand but when he takes it out of the box he’s glad they went with it. The dummy looks good. Creepy as fuck, obviously, but good. Chris has got the color of his eyes right and has modelled his mouth well: it’s set in a flat, slightly mulish line. 

Problem is, it looks good, but it’s just a doll. No sign of life.

“Well, how _did_ you make Timothée come alive?” Timmy asks, looking it over. He’s super-pleased with the suit.

“I dunno, ask him.”

“I can’t really say,” Timothée says. “I don’t really remember anything until Armie’s voice…” he gives Armie a simpering sort of look. “When he began talking to me and revealed his innermost self to me. It was like he called me into being. Especially when he had his hand right up round my…”

“Oh,” Timmy says faintly. “So you were already alive that night? When we were…”

Timothée picks a piece of invisible lint from his harness and sniffs.

“I suggest you speak to Armand,” - Armie rolls his eyes - “to _Armand_,” Timothée continues, firmly, “as if you _want_ him to be there with you. It’s the best way to speak to anyone you care for.”

So Timmy starts talking to Armand and Timothée reads _Find Me_ aloud to him, which is a headfuck for a number of reasons. Armie thinks about putting them both in the dumpster, book and all, and he would do it if Timmy didn’t look at him reproachfully whenever he threatens it. Armand is a stubborn block of wood however, and shows no sign of life, even after a whole weekend of Timmy describing his every waking move, like he’s talking to someone in a coma, “and now we’re opening a beer. Look I’m taking the top off. Would you like a beer Armand? You can have one if you wake up...” 

Timmy begins to despair, puts his headphones on and goes for a walk; Timothée goes to his drawer to cry because he’s all about the melodrama and Armie collapses on the sofa to play a little _Call of Duty_.

“oomf...get off me motherfucker!” 

Armie looks down and realises he’s sitting right on Armand. He catapults across the room to keep a safe distance as Armand gets upright, straightening his velvet suit.

“Jesus. Death by giant ass. Get a guy a drink can you? If he’s gonna start reading me that book again I need to be 100% drunker than I am right now.”

From the bedroom, he hears a querulous voice gasp, “Armand?” and Armand says, “Sounds like someone wants to say hello, find me that drink okay Armie?”

By the time Timmy gets back, Armand is all up in Timothée’s drawer, and Armie has had to shut the bedroom door.

“Looks like we’re on the sofa tonight,” he says. “let’s just hope they can’t make puppet babies because we all know how that sequel would end.”

“Aw! It’s so sweet,” sighs Timmy. “We did a good thing. I’m so glad he doesn’t have to be sad - or murder-y.”

“Question is, Tim, where are they going to go? We’ve got the rest of this week and then, well…” He gestures to the wall calender, which has their movements for the next eighteenth months plotted in a variety of colored pens. ‘Together in NYC’ is red and there’s precious little of it, the odd weekend, a whole five days in June 2020. “I mean, we could just release them into the sewers?”

“I have an idea. But…” Timmy puts on his special, crinkly, irresistible face that Armie could live a thousand years and never be able to say ‘no’ to, “we might need some money. How much did they say they’d pay you for that Japanese cereal commercial?”

*  
“Bye Timmy,” Armand says. “If you get bored of Giganto here, come and find us. I got room for two.”

“Fuck you Pinocchio,” mutters Armie.

“Thank you for everything,” Timothée says, reaching up to Timmy for a hug. 

“Aw, I’m gonna miss you little guy. And your _amazing_ soufflées,” Timmy replies, as Timothée looks over Timmy’s shoulder and gives Armie a soulful look. 

“Farewell Armie,” he whispers.

“Yep, bye,” says Armie.

They climb into the packing case and Timmy covers them carefully with bubble wrap.

“You’re going to love it in Italy,” he says. “The villa is gorgeous and no-one will bother you there. And when we’re back for filming we can check in on you. Luca’s gonna unpack you at the other end. He’s psyched to meet you.”

They put the lid on and screw it down and Timmy checks again that the address is right.

“I hope they’ll be alright,” he says. “All on their own in that big house.”

“They’ll be fine.” Armie says. “C’mere dollface. We’ve got our bed back and I wanna see I can still make you say 'thank you'.”

********  
The kids in Crema say the villa on the edge of town is haunted. They say that if you go there late at night, there are lights in the upstairs rooms and you can hear voices and sometimes the sound of running feet. When tourists who want to see where the famous film was made come to look at the villa, they take photographs through the gates. The children tell them of the time a girl said she was sure she’d seen the characters from the film looking down at her from an upstairs window. But whenever a kid is brave enough to take a dare and climb over the gates, and pry open the loose shutter at the back and peep in through the window, there’s never anyone there, just a whisper of a voice maybe, on the wind, an American voice, saying, “get the fuck out of here, motherfucker...”


End file.
